CounterPunch

February 14, 2003

LernerGate

None of this Helps Kids in Iraq, But It Sure Got Michael Lerner Air Time

By CounterPunch News Service

http://www.counterpunch.org/lerner02142003.html 

The story begins when Michael Lerner demands 15 minutes, a larger chunk than other scheduled speakers, to speak at the January 18 antiwar march in San Francisco. The organizers, IAC-ANSWER decline to give him the extended time.

Michael Lerner put out a letter on the internet in which he wrote that the position "... the Tikkun community have put forward is that the mobilizations have been run by a group called ANSWER, itself dominated by a communist sect group which is filled with hate toward Israel and wishes to see it dismantled. It has used anti-war demonstrations to demean Israel and to picture the war in Iraq as a war for Israeli interests. "

Of course speakers at peace demonstrations have denounced the appalling conduct of the Sharon government towards Palestinians. And many have noted that Sharon and before him Netanyahu have been pressing for a US attack on Iraq, which would indeed vastly benefit Israel.

Feb. 10: Lerner's Tikkun website announced that "Rabbi Michael Lerner can not speak at the peace rally in San Francisco, February 16th. That was the response given when various groups proposed Rabbi Lerner, thinking it logical to have him speak since he is one of the most prominent peace voices in the Jewish world.

"But Rabbi Lerner was blackballed and banned by A.N.S.W.E.R., one of the four organizing committees for the S.F. demonstration expected to attract hundreds of thousands. The reason: Lerner had been critical of the way that A.N.S.W.E.R. has used the anti-war demonstrations to put forward anti-Israel propaganda...."

Feb. 10: An article appear on the Nation magazine website by its Washington correspondent David Corn, which coincided with Lerner's announcement and echoed his accusations, charging that "the peaceniks pulling together the San Francisco march and rally may have tainted their efforts by allowing the banning of Rabbi Michael Lerner as a speaker." "Lerner is the progressive Jew," Corn wrote.

David Corn earlier wrote in the Nation website a disgusting piece of red-baiting about ANSWER, as had another Nation writer, Marc Cooper.

Feb. 11: A call for a national Tikkun Conference against the war went out to Tikkun's mailing list in the morning that made no specific mention of his disagreements with the February 16th coalition, which said, in part:

"The war with Iraq and the re-election of Ariel Sharon make it imperative that we become mobilized for nonviolent peaceful activity--and to promote a more sophisticated (and not tinged with anti-Israel sentiments) critique of the war, and a balanced, progressive middle path that is both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine on the Middle East.

"The large anti-war coalitions are a step, but they need the kind of help that you and I can give them by bringing into public discourse and into the media the more nuanced and persuasive perspective which you and I can supply.

"To do that, we need to recognize what is legitimate in the fears of many Americans post 9/11 and what is legitimate in the fears of many Israelis about terror from some Palestinians...".

"Nuanced" essentially means, Keep Israel's name out of this.

Feb. 11: The Tikkun website announced that it had "received ...[a] letter from Marc Cooper at The Nation magazine..[who] has taken the lead in organizing a public response to the irresponsible actions of those who have sought to keep Rabbi Lerner from speaking at the anti- war demonstration in SF this weekend."

It reads, in part, that, "We, the undersigned, protest ANSWER's refusal to let Rabbi Lerner speak at this Sunday's rally. At a time when the antiwar movement needs as broad a platform and as broad an appeal as possible, ANSWER has chosen instead to put the interests of sectarianism ahead of the interests of all those who oppose this foolish and unnecessary war. We believe this is a serious mistake, and that it exemplifies ANSWER's unfitness to lead mass mobilizations against war in Iraq.'

The letter contains the signatures of many media activists, including at least a dozen who write for The Nation.

Feb 11: The letter co-authored by Cooper and Michael Berube, professor of American literature at Penn State, is posted on the Common Dreams website and on David Horowitz's Front Page website, under the heading, Peace Demonstration Bares its Anti-Semitic Teeth, by The Nation and Tikkun Magazines." On February 7, Berube participated in forum on the anti-war movement, hosted by Horowitz for his website. His fellow panelists were regular red-baiters Sean Wilentz, of Princeton, and Ron Radosh, of the Hudson Instititute

The trap is sprung by a coalition of people who have either slandered the existing peace movement (Cooper, Berube et al) and straightforward Bombardiers for Bush, like Horowitz, with whom Cooper and Berube appear to beentirely comfortable. The protest letter is signed by many people , such as the well respected Howard Zinn, who have spared themselves the convenience of raising even the mildest bleat about the oppression of Palkestinians down the decades.

Feb. 11: A four-part mailing is sent out by Tikkun that contains: "I. Banning of Lerner--background; II. Op-ed by Rabbi Lerner (that will appear two days later in the Wall Street Journal; III. Article [by Corn] from The Nation.com about Banning of Lerner; IV. Letter Being Circulated Nationally by The Nation (sic) protesting the banning of Lerner from speaking at the anti-war rally."

So now Lerner has found his podium in the the most fervent advocate of war among all US newspapers, the Wall Street Journal.

Feb. 11: The February 16th organizing coalition (Bay Area United Against

War, Not in Our Name Project, International A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, and United for Peace & Justice) issued a statement refuting Lerner's allegations, explaining that it was not Lerner's politics but his prior public criticism of A.N.S.W.E.R. that led to him not being asked to speak. According to the statement:

"One of the first agreements that was made between the groups organizing the Feb. 16 anti-war protest was that none of the coalitions would propose rally speakers who had publicly attacked or worked to discredit one of the coalition groups. When members of the Tikkun Community, who have actively participated in the organizing meetings for Feb. 16, suggested to Bay Area United for Peace and Justice that it propose Michael Lerner as a speaker, it was explained by members of UPJ that since he had publicly attacked A.N.S.W.E.R. in both the New York Times and Tikkun community email newsletters, his inclusion in the program would violate the agreement among the Feb. 16 organizing groups. At that time, Tikkun representatives expressed that it would not be a problem if Michael Lerner was not proposed as a speaker."

The gullible organizers failed to see the trap being baited, right before their very eyes.

Feb. 11 Lerner is interviewed on Pacifica stations KPFK and KPFA.

Feb. 12 An article appears on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, with the headline, "A Mideast rift in peace coalition; S.F. rabbi highlights speaker controversy. It reads, in part:

"A controversy over efforts to have a Bay Area Jewish leader address Sunday's anti-war rally in San Francisco is raising a politically radioactive issue that a coalition of groups putting on the event had hoped to avoid -- the peace movement's attitude toward Israel and the Palestinians."

Feb. 12 Liat Weingart from A Jewish Voice for Peace in Berkeley writes:

"Rabbi Lerner was not banned at all from speaking. A Jewish Voice for Peace is having a speaker at the same demonstration, and two other rabbis from

San Francisco are also speaking. Marisa Handler, a representative from Tikkun, was present at the meeting of United for Peace where it was decided that Michael would not speak. She was asked three times if she was comfortable having someone else speak, and she said that she was, again and again. A week passed after this meeting, without incident, and then Michael decided to send a press release, stating that he was banned because of his views. This is patently false and has been tremendously destructive. We have been overloaded with trying to right this wrong, and it has distracted us from our work of organizing for this Sunday's demonstration. I urge you to please set the record straight."

Feb 12: Michael Lerner sends out a response to emails he has received criticizing his position, accusing the left of anti-Semitism. He writes, in part that:

"The progressive world has never seriously considered how anti-Semitism functions in their thinking. That's why it comes as a shock to many morally decent people on the Left to hear that many Jews hear their criticisms of Israel as anti-Semitic. So they defend themselves by insisting that criticism of Israeli is not anti-Semitic. And they are partly right.

"But context is everything. It's not the fact of criticizing Israel, but the one-sidedness and the selecting out of Israel for special focus. We in the TIKKUN Community have been outspoken critics of Israeli repression of Palestinian rights. But we've also been outspoken in our criticism of acts of terror against Israeli civilians. We've called for Palestinians to reject all forms of violence and follow the lead of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi, whose struggles against oppression were successful in part because they conveyed to the oppressor that the oppressed still recognized their humanity and hence would not take acts of cruel revenge the moment they could. It was that same spirit that made possible the transformation of South Africa under the leadership of Nelson Mandela. Acts of terror, on the other hand, drive the Israeli population into the hands of the most right-wing forces in Israeli society. So if one attends a rally in which Israel is being critiqued without this larger context, the feeling of bashing Israel becomes predominant.

"And then, if Israel's human rights abuses are selected out as the major focus, only reserving more abuse for the U.S. government, then we have to ask: Why is there such silence at these demonstrations about the far greater human rights abuses of Saddam Hussein? Or of China in Tibet? or of Russian in Chechnya? or of the regimes in Saudia Arabia and Syria and Egypt and dozens of other states?

"The selective focus on Israel, coupled with the unfair way that the situation is portrayed (e.g. "Israeli apartheid" --apparently with no awareness that Arabs living within the pre-67 borders of Israel have their own political parties and representatives in the Knesset, are not legally restricted from being on the same beaches and same movie theatres as Jews, and face discrimination that is far less intense than, say, the discrimination that Jews face in Saudi Arabia)."

So far as CounterPunch is aware, Russia, China and Arab nations are not pressing the US into attacking Iraq.

Feb. 12: Lerner's op-ed article, now titled The Anti-War Anti-Semites is published in the Wall Street Journal.

Feb 13: The Jewish Voice for Peace newsletter responds to the situation.

It reads, in part:

"A frenzy has been whipped up around the issue of whether or not Rabbi Michael Lerner will speak at the upcoming demonstration in San Francisco, taking place on Sunday, February 16. The accusation that the anti-war movement does not incorporate Jewish voices is a serious one, one that deserves a serious response.

"At A Jewish Voice for Peace, we have found close and staunch allies in the anti-war coalition. We have found that our opinion is sought time and time again and that our stance in support for a truly just peace between Israelis and Palestinians and respect for Israeli human rights as well as Palestinians' has been respected and represented in the speakers that have been chosen. At the upcoming demonstration, Mitchell Plitnick, Director of Administration and Communication for JVP, will speak, along with Israeli refusenik Ofer Shorr, and Kate Raphael from San Francisco Women in Black, Rabbi Steven Pierce, Rabbi Pam Frydman-Baugh, and Rabbi David Cooper. This represents a broad spectrum of Jewish anti-war views.

"Rabbi Lerner's views are welcomed in the coalition. He is an important spokesperson for the movement for peace and justice in Israel and Palestine. It was because he criticized one of the coalition partners, ANSWER, in the New York Times and over TikkunMail, that the coalition, including the Tikkun representative present at the meeting, decided that we were capable of finding another speaker with views similar to his who did not openly attack a coalition partner. Therefore the question of Rabbi Lerner speaking was never even brought before the coalition's program committee. The proviso that anyone who had taken such action would not be welcomed to speak can be debated, but it was agreed to well in advance by all members of this coalition.

Feb. 13: KRON-TV in San Francisco gives Lerner a five minute segment to criticize International A.N.S.W.E.R. without any rebuttal.

CounterPunch

February 12, 2003

American Journal

"The Largest Outcry in History";
Should Michael Lerner Speak?
Kucinich: It's A Go; Who's Howard Dean? Kansas Speaks: "Jah is God!"

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn02122003.html

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

We're witnessing the largest outcry in history against an imminent war with the imminent aggressors-- the US and UK--so frightened of the outcry that they have been trying to curb the demonstrations in New York and London.

The one in New York is scheduled for February 15, with the gathering point as of this writing at noon , 49th st and 1st Avenue. On Monday a federal court ruled in favor of the NYPD, denying next Saturday's demonstrators the right to march past the United Nations. Desmond Tutu told the march's organizers in United For Peace and Justice that the ban reminded him of the days of apartheid in South Africa. For updates, check the UFPJ website or listen to WBAI radio. The UFPJ website also has information about the various feeder marches that will meet earlier and proceed to the main march. At time of writing, the ban is being heard before the 2cnd Circuit Court of Appeals.

It will be a remarkable moment, a worldwide demonstration for peace, perhaps the largest worldwide protest in history or at least in modern times. One other major demonstration in this country is planned for San Francisco but the date is shifted to Sunday Feb 16.

There are demos round the world--more than 306 cities--on all continents! There's even a demonstration scheduled in Antarctica, outside the McMurdo Station there. As to New York, the buzz is this is going to be a major amount of people. Nobody is giving out numbers except to say it will build on the success of the Jan 18 demonstration which the Washington Post called the largest anti-war demo since the Vietnam period. The London Daily Mirror several weeks ago forecast that there would be ten million turning out worldwide for all these protests

The Gothamites on the streets Saturday will include plenty that watched in horror as the World Trade Center fell. Survivors and survivors' kin are playing a prominent role. The anti-war sentiment continues to build here even as the Big Apple is a prime target for further damage. Whatever the stresses and strains within the movement about ANSWER, United for Peace and Justice is organizing this one. Leslie Cagan and other long-time hands are involved. Several hundred volunteers made a huge literature outreach last weekend. There's lots of labor involvement, youth, greens, war veterans.

After 9-11, there were pledges about ensuring better cooperation between federal authorities and the NYPD. That seems to be just what Bush and Bloomberg have had in mind. In the negotiations between the city and UFPJ, after an initial offer of a march permit (not for the route desired by UFPJ) the march offer was taken off the table altogether and now a federal judge has upheld that decision. The pressure on NYPD may not have been so subtle. The Bush/Ashcroft operation sent federal prosecutors to the court hearing and the feds filed an amicus brief.

Another unsettling aspect is how the city has been using pens--metal enclosures--to chop up demonstrations, even relatively small ones. This tactic has made it very difficult find friends, to feel that the assembled crowd has a collective presence. Rather, it often feels as though the police want to cage up people to demoralize and control. Here in the US, we are unlikely to wake up one morning to find a coup. Instead, we get the shredding of civil liberties in fits and starts, till one fine day we wake up to find it's all gone.

Michael Lerner: Should He Speak?

CounterPunch's inbox is suddenly clogged with e-traffic about Michael Lerner being banned from speaking at the San Francisco rally. We got one list of protesting signatories studded with notables and miscreants, like Eric Alterman who normally spends his time deriding the antiwar protests, just like Marc Cooper, who clearly sees a "Let Lerner Speak" campaign as a good way of smearing ANSWER and NION (Not in Our Name).

My initial reaction was to say to Jeffrey St Clair that any move to keep Lerner from pouring out his usual freshets of idiocy is sound by definition, but on mature consideration I counsel the organizers of the San Francisco rally to slot Lerner in at some point in the proceedings

I'm quite prepared to believe that Lerner, a relentless self-promoter, has managed to piss off everybody with egocentric posturing and unity-wrecking maneuvers, and maybe his plan from the start has been to engineer a situation in which he can howl that Jew-haters have laid him low. But let the guy speak anyway. Mostly people don't listen to speeches, and if you suddenly hear Lerner's voice disturbing the harmony of the great convergence, move into a drumming circle and blot the guy out.

Every now and again Lerner writes to CounterPunch asking for our support when he'd been attacked by the neocons. Tikkun has published some good stuff such as reports by Tanya Rinehart, one the best reporters and commentators in Israel. He's a flake, but on Israel, considering the mostly awful spectrum of opinion here, he's often been constructive. Look at other American-Jewish publications and you'll see what I mean. For a good exchange which excitingly revealed Lerner's distinct limitations I refer you to his debate with Salman abu-Sitta on the right of Palestinian return.

Lerner and Hillary Clinton had a thing going for a brief moment, and then she, like so many others, realized that having Lerner around the place was like having a badly trained retriever, either jumping up and licking your face or making a mess in the corner. It reminds me somehow of Norman Podhoretz back in the days of Camelot, who conceived a passion for Jackie Kennedy and came to believe that somehow, against all the odds, she secretly reciprocated his yearning. Eventually, at some cocktail party he cornered her and pressed his suit. She gazed at him as though he was a centipede on her sleeve, and said icily, "Why, Mr Podhoretz, just who do you think you are?" Not long thereafter the jilted Poddy began his long trek to the right.

Kucinich To Run; Who's Howard Dean?

Dennis Kucinich has definitely decided to run for the Democratic nomination, or so he's confided to a close Friend of CounterPunch last week. He is forming his exploratory committee and predicts he will win the Iowa caucus. Our Friend asked him how he proposed to deal with his opposition to abortion, a stance that is anathema to many in the pwog crowd who would otherwise be cheering Dennis on. He waved a dismissive hand, as if to say "No Prob". Hmm.

Meanwhile we detect ripples of pwog support for Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, also seeking the Democratic nomination. Now, we remember a time not so long past when progressives in Vermont were decrying Gov Dean as a man who undercut a drive for true universal health insurance with a more limited program. The turning point came when Dean came out strongly in favor of civil union marriages for gays, at a time when gays in Vermont feared a right-wing onslaught so savage that they would be compelled to flee down Interstate 91 south into western Massachusetts and the comparative safety of Northampton, heaviest concentration of lesbians east of the Rockies.

The gays have remembered Dean fondly ever since and now Dean has established quite a corner in gay funding across the country. On the other side, he's fallen into bad company with unsavory organizers in South Carolina. In some ways he seems like a reprise on another governor from a small, poor state, many years ago, Jimmy Carter. JC was a peanut broker and Dean is a doctor (hailing from plush origins as part of the Dean that's hyphenated with Witter). Carter was the herald of neo-liberalism. Maybe now that we've gone the full cycle from the first boastful rationales for dereg of the late Seventies to their consummation in the orgies of thievery 20 years later, it's time for candidates with even minimal progressive pretensions to find decent left economists to help them reformulate the radical economic agenda, but that seems more Kucinich's province. But no doubt we'll be hearing Dean boast about all he's done to feed and care for the poor in Vermont.

Kucinich opposes abortion. Dean does not shrink from the idea of killing people. He supports the death penalty for child and cop murder, coming to that position in 1998 just when Gov Ryan of Illinois was on the march towards his epoch-making onslaughts on Illinois' death machine. I assume Dean was contemplating his run for the nomination and felt he had to go with some form of Death Penalty Lite, to keep the cop and kindred hang 'em high lobbies off his ass. But Dean's logic has expansionism built into it. Why stop with the tot-slayers? Doesn't a guy who bludgeons an old lady to death similarly deserve to die? Now which governor was it that flew home to Arkansas from New Hampshire in the midst of a fraught primary to sign a death warrant? Dean would be able to walk home and sign such a piece of paper.

All things considered, for the time being we'll stand with the guy who's against the war, for choice and against the death penalty. Mr Al Sharpton, please rise!


Jah, or Jam?

Driving along I-70 a few weeks ago I saw a sign in western Kansas for Wilson, billed as "the Czech capital of Kansas". Out of the corner of my eye I saw something on the sign about sausages, so I pulled off, hoping for some souvenir of Bohemian charcuterie. I found Mrs Shiro in her textile boutique, who had promoted Wilson as Czech center, and she sent me to Wilson Family Foods, which sold me good bratwurst, landjaeger and smoked bacon which I cooked further along 1-70 in my motel.

I inspected the war memorial, counting 94 deceased vets from World War One, with 3 killed in action; 132 vets from World War 2, with 15 KIA; 10 from the Korean war, with just one KIA; 4 from the Vietnam war, with two KIA. Then I looked back up the main street and saw in the mid-distance a big building and in front of it a sign, AM LEGION STEAK FEED and on the next line JAH IS GOD. This seemed pretty multicultural for western Kansas, and I walked a bit closer. Sure enough, it said JAM IS GOD, no doubt a proud reference to Czech cherry jam. A bit later, driving out of town, I went right past the sign and it said, matter of factly, JAN 18 600. Out of such epigraphic misreadings whole histories of nonsense have been written.